Here, we go again. Why does it seem, lately, that a significant portion of the country sounds a lot like our three-year-old every time he sees me looking at something I my iPhone: “Let me see! I wanna see!”

It doesn’t matter what there is to see, or whether it’s something we should see. I doesn’t matter if we know what we’re seeing. It doesn’t even matter whether it matters if we see it. There’s something to see, and we just gotta see it.

So of course, having learned that there are pictures of Osama bin Laden’s corpse, it’s become the hottest “must see” piece of GWOT “war porn.”

Sound and video? That meant there were pictures, at the very least, and probably sound and video too. I figured it was only a matter of time before that familiar refrain started up again. “Let me see! Let me see! I wanna see!”

After the Tucson, AZ, shooting that left six people dead and nineteen wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, we learned that video of the shooting existed. Then as now, the big question was whether it should be released. Should we see it? Why should we see it?

I was against it then.

I tend to agree. I don’t personally want to see it. And I’m not sure what value there is in showing it outside of a courtroom, where it might be presented as evidence against the shooter.

First, there are the families to consider. They’ve been through enough without having a video of their loved-one’s being shot — and killed, for six families — going viral and rocketing all over the internet. I can’t imagine dealing with the possibility of coming across something like that online, let alone knowing that it’s gone viral and is being viewed by millions of people. It could only serve to worsen their pain unnecessarily.

Second, and perhaps this is cynical of me, but I’m not sure that it would produce the results Tomasky initially suggested. I don’t think the violence in video would have any real impact. We’re already so desensitized to violence and numb to the pain of others that I can’t imagine this video would cause much shock or outrage, let alone reflection.

Violent video games and movies make people numb to the pain and suffering of others, according to a research report published in the March 2009 issue of Psychological Science.

The report details the findings of two studies conducted by University of Michigan professor Brad Bushman and Iowa State University professor Craig Anderson.

The studies fill an important research gap in the literature on the impact of violent media. In earlier work, Bushman and Anderson demonstrated that exposure to violent media produces physiological desensitization—lowering heart rate and skin conductance — when viewing scenes of actual violence a short time later. But the current research demonstrates that violent media also affect someone’s willingness to offer help to an injured person, in a field study as well as in a laboratory experiment.

And, no, I don’t think factoring that the violence in the video is real and unscripted would change that. The phenomenon of “war porn” and its popularity on the internet suggests that it might have more entertainment value than educational value, to some

There’s an irony here that will be lost some Americans who don’t “do” irony since 9/11. The operation that killed Osama bin Laden took place just a few days after the seventh anniversary of our first glimpse of the pictures from Abu Ghraib.

Any why is it we were afraid to look at all of these images, but yet want to see this one so badly?

Maybe for its entertainment value? After all, “war porn” has become a whole genre of online entertainment after Abu Ghraib. The problem is that it is considered entertainment now, and what it says about us that there’s a huge audience for it, a point that Liz Winstead made with a joke about the video and images from the bin Laden raid and the deficit.

She’s probably right. But there’s a high price to be paid for that kind of entertainment.

What gets lost in the highlight reels of explosions and bodies is the moral complexity of war, says Bryant Paul, an expert on the psychological and sexual effects of media. He points to a video of American soldiers making fun of a dog eating a dead Iraqi. “The behavior may be a coping mechanism for war, because they might have to normalize what is not normal in order to survive,” he says. “But the people who watch this stuff can’t know that, so they can’t understand the entirety of what they’re seeing.”

Yet these images will perpetuate a particular version of these wars, says Paul. It is a version that does not treat the enemy as human, or life as valuable. It is a version that does not recognize the pain of some of the U.S. soldiers who pull the trigger. And as realistic as these videos might seem, they do not show war for what it actually is: terrifyingly real.

On Breitbart’s website, J. Michael Waller, suggests Obama take a number of extraordinary steps so he can “make sure [Osama] is dead.” Pictures are apparently not enough. Walker asserts that he needs to be able to “walk right up to bin Laden’s corpse and view it.” More:

The free world, particularly the United States, has a right to make sure Osama bin Laden is really dead. Every American has a right to walk right up to bin Laden’s corpse and view it. We are entitled to know for a fact that the witch is dead. No shroud for dignity’s sake, please – bin Laden’s naked, bullet-riddled corpse should be put on display in lower Manhattan for all the world to see. The entire body should be digitally scanned, inside and out – and made available for everyone to take his or her own picture.

What? No nationwide tour? (Again, think deficit here, folks. What would people pay to have their pictures taken with bin Laden’s corpse?) Then we’d all get the chance to gloat a little, too.

Why do we need the world to see it?

One reason? Intimidation.

That’s right. We need one more picture to shove in the world’s face. As if it hasn’t seen enough of our handiwork already. (These are the same folks who said those of us who were opposed to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq should have been forced to look at the most graphic images of 9/11 victims. Because that would change our minds.) Never mind that the surest way to make others actually seek our destruction might be to blast the image of his corpse around the world, or parade it for all to see.

It’s also true that bin Laden’s killing might have mattered more in 2002 or 2003. At that time in countries like Pakistan, many ordinary people had a very high regard for bin Laden and doubted that he was centrally involved in the 9/11 attacks. Over time that view has changed: popular opinion has moved more against him, and you no longer see Osama t-shirts for sale in the markets. Some people still feel a bit of respect for his ability to outwit the United States, or they are so anti-American that they embrace anybody we don’t like, but bin Laden has been marginalized over time.

Osama’s declining image also means that he won’t be a martyr in many circles (although if Americans appear too celebratory and triumphant, dancing on his grave, that may create a sympathetic backlash for Osama). Many ordinary Pakistanis, Yemenis and Afghans will simply shrug and move on. His death won’t inspire people, the way it might have in 2002. And Al Qaeda is already going through a difficult time because it has been sidelined by the Arab Spring protests; on top of that, losing its top leader will be a major blow.

And wouldn’t that be just what he’d want?

My guess is the president took all of the national security and foreign-relations related points into consideration when making the decision not to release the photos. I’m willing to bet he considered the point I’ve tried to make above — that doing so might bring us that much close to what we’ve become since 9/11, instead of giving us a chance to turn back from that course.

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Oh, come on. Christian Bale has a point. If Moses were around today — “hearing voices” and acting out — he’d probably be diagnosable as schizophrenic. After all, when people “hear voices” today, they end up as mental health patients, not prophets.

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I vote “No.” For starters, we’re not a agrarian society anymore. Second, it certainly doesn’t make me more productive. If anything, I’m far less productive during the couple of days it takes me to adjust to the time change — especially in the spring.